Undying Love
by Mjstevie
Summary: What if, long after Freya died, she had a chance to come back and be with Merlin? A two-shot dedicated to Merlin and Freya's love for each other. Freylin, because I love it so much. Slight? AU set after season 4 and completely changing the course of season 5.
1. Freya Returns

A cloaked figure walked hurriedly towards Camelot. The figure looked warily up at the gates to the citadel as the first few drops of rain began to fall from the dark clouds that had accumulated overhead. The woman kept her hood up to hide her face and pulled her cloak tightly round her slender frame in an futile attempt to keep dry as the rain began to pelt down before walking quickly inside the gates, looking in all directions for the one person she needed to find. Merlin.

...

The rain that had be threatening to fall all day had begun. One minute, it was fine, the next, the heavens opened and suddenly, Merlin was soaked from head to toe. Of course, Arthur had blatantly _refused _to go inside.

"_Arthur, should we not go inside for a while and wait for the rain to stop?"_

"_**Mer**lin, just because it is raining, doesn't mean we don't train. Enemies still attack if it's raining you know. It's not like they all just think, 'Oh, look, it's raining! Aw well, we'll have to just NOT attack Camelot today'."_

"_So, you don't care if I get pneumonia and die from just standing here, in the rain?"_

"_Not really, no."_

"_Dollop head."_

"_Idiot."_

"_Clotpole."_

"_**Mer**lin?"_

"_Yes, sire?"_

"_Shut up."_

Merlin sighed slightly exasperatedly and wiped a droplet of rain that was running down his nose away. Some time, during his little flashback, Arthur and the other knights had finished their sparring and were now making their way over to the soaking manservant.

Arthur shrugged off his armor and practically threw it at the warlock who caught it expertly, from the many times Arthur had threw things at him, he was well prepared.

"Dry it for me Merlin, I don't want it to rust from the rain." Merlin was about to say something back along the lines of well-it-wouldn't-rust-if-you-had-have-listened-to- me but stopped when he felt the strangest feeling that he was missing something important.

He turned round and began to scan the courtyard for anything that could be happening. A threat to Arthur perhaps? A druid needing his help? Nothing, that is until his eyes rested on a cloaked figure who was walking quickly through the market, looking from side to side almost frantically.

In her frenzy, her hood slipped slightly and Merlin paled and let out a slight gasp, dropping the armor to the ground with a crash as he did so.

It couldn't be, it just couldn't, but then could it? This couldn't be real, as much as he wanted it to be, it just wasn't possible. He was aware of someone placing their hand on his shoulder.

"Merlin, mate, you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost." Gwaine was asking him, squeezing his shoulder slightly before Merlin shrugged it off and shook his head slightly, no sure if it was to Gwaine or to shake himself back to reality, before taking off after the woman he had seen. He would make excuses later, but for now, he couldn't let the person out of his sight, if it was who he thought it was, he needed to catch up with her.

He could hear Gwaine calling after him but he ran through the rain and was soon swallowed into the crowd, pushing people out of his way as he walked quickly and determinedly toward the girl who had her back to him. _Please let it be her, please, please let it be her._

...

The girl was beginning to get desperate. She could not see Merlin anywhere. She hoped no one would recognize her and hoped she could get to Merlin before anyone else got to her.

Suddenly she felt a firm hand grab her wrist and heard someone panting from behind her as if they had been running a lot. She yelped slightly and whipped round in fear as terrible thoughts of Halig invaded her mind.

Her chocolate brown eyes met with deep blue. Took in the raven hair and red neckerchief before letting out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding in, "Merlin."

Merlin looked pale, as if he had seen a ghost and was breathing heavily as if he had been sprinting for some time. She watched as his eyes clouded with tears and he choked out her name. "F-freya?"

She nodded and her eyes too filled with unshed tears. "Merlin," She repeated again quietly and thrust her arms round his neck "How I have missed you." Merlin just cried silently into the girls neck and pulled her in close to him before planting a small kiss in the corner of her mouth.

"I have missed you too, more than you could ever imagine." He smiled before the reality of the impossibility that this could be happening hit him. Freya was dead, he had watched her die in his arms, he had sent her boat across the lake and set it alight. He had shed thousands of tears for his girl and now here she was, in his arms, but how? "How, are you alive, after all these years? I mean, you died." He half whispered, after what seemed like an eternity.

"Well, after I helped you, when Morgana was attacking Camelot, the Sidhe thought I may deserve a pardon. You see, in Avalon, if you have done may wrongs in your life, as I have done, and died before your time, you can be given a pardon from the dead which allows you to live once more.

"To earn the pardon, you must help the mortals as I did with Excalibur and as the guardian of the lake. The Sidhe may be horrible but they are not heartless, so if you have unfinished business with any mortal, after the right number of years you may come back to finish it.

"I was taken away from you before we had our life together so I appealed before the Sidhe council and they agreed, on one condition, after I die this time, I can't come back again. One pardon per soul."

Merlin could have choked with happiness as the tears came again and slid down his cheeks unbidden. He took her delicate hands in his and pulled her close again. "We can't stay here then,"

Freya looked sad again, "You can't leave your life here Merlin. I just wanted to see you again."

Merlin shook his head again. "I never loved another, I've been wanting this for so long." Merlin smiled as he remembered an eariler conversation all those years ago. "We'll go somewhere with mountains."

Freya giggled slightly, "A few fields."

"Wild flowers."

"A couple of cows."

"And a lake."

"And a lake." Freya finished, smiling as Merlin took her hands again. Merlin pulled back the cloak a bit to examine the dress she was wearing.

"You're still wearing the dress I gave you." Freya nodded shyly. "You still look like a princess. My princess." He finished, wiping a wet lock of her hair away and kissing her softly on the lips, a gesture which she returned an they stayed that way for quite some time, ignoring the rain that was beating down and soaking them to the skin. After they had broken away, Merlin fished in his pocket until he produced a small cloth bag with the wages Arthur had paid him that morning.

"Go and buy us some food for the journey. I'll get us some horses, blankets and water then meet me in the stables at night fall." Freya nodded and kissed him once more on the cheek before walking off in the direction of the market, glancing back every once in a while.

Merlin turned round and began to walk back to the training grounds, beaming smile in place, running, quite literally, into Sir Gwaine, who had finally fought through he crowds to the warlock.

"Merlin, why the hell did you run off like that?" So Merlin sighed and made up a story about thinking he saw someone but it wasn't them. Gwaine raised an eyebrow in a very good imitation of Gaius as if to say he didn't believe him but didn't push the subject further. Merlin quickly left and bolted through the rain to his chambers, smile never faltering.

...

That night, as Merlin snuck out of the physicians chambers, he tucked a letter into the snoring Gaius' hand. He walked quietly and stealthily for the door, looking back sadly at his mentor and praying to the gods that he could forgive him. He slipped out into the silent corridor outside, closing the door gently behind himself. A single torch illuminated the dark space as Merlin stumbled through the half gloom into the courtyard.

He scanned around for guards before sprinting towards the stables. He saw a dark figure crouching down against a stall, shivering in the cold evening air. "Freya." He whispered into the gloom.

"Merlin?" The figure replied timidly before stepping out from behind one of the stalls. He lifted an unlit torch from a worktop nearby that was used for mending horse shoes.

"Forbærnan." The torch burst into flames and lit up the gloom around them. He walked over to a horse he had saddled earlier and placed two water skins and a blanket inside the saddle bag, Freya came over and handed him a small cloth sack full of food which he placed inside too.

"I'm only going to take the one horse so no one gets suspicious, we can share. No one will notice if this mare is gone, I use it sometimes but no one else does." Freya nodded and he helped her up onto the saddle before leading the mare through the doors and across the courtyard.

As he headed down the road away from Camelot, the young warlock looked back at the great castle, rising majestically against the moon, and vowed that one day, he would return.

...

**A/N: I love Freya/Merlin so much that I felt the urge to write this two-shot of what might happen if there was a way for Freya to come back. I hated that Freya died so I came up with a solution. This will be continued as a two-shot if I get enough interest so, what do you think? **

**As always, please review and hope you enjoyed!**

**Mary xo :)**


	2. Return to Camelot

Freya walked back into village in the early even sun, carrying some grain with he as she did. She watched as some of the village children ran through the streets laughing and smiled. It was midsummer and the fading light and sunset behind the mountains was truly a sight to behold.

When she and Merlin had left Camelot, they had stumbled upon this tiny village, only about an hours ride from Ealdor. The people of Carmethan, as it was called, had welcomed them with open arms and made them feel at ease and at home almost immediately.

It was beautiful, a large crystal lake stretched out in front of the small cluster of thatched cottages and was surrounded by a dense forest, the outlines of the white mountains just visible on the horizon. Behind the houses were many vast fields when the people farmed and reared cattle as a living and to feed the villagers. It reminded her of her old home and similarly reminded Merlin of Ealdor.

Merlin had found work as a carpenter in the village and Freya helped the women with harvest when the time came. Her and Merlin had married almost as soon as they had settled down in Carmethan.

As the young woman rounded the corner, she saw her husband sitting on the steps to their small house, staring forlornly across the shimmering lake and playing absentmindedly with his red neckerchief. She sighed and put down the basket she had been carrying before sitting down beside the raven headed boy and settling her delicate hand on her shoulder.

"You're so distracted lately." She stated gently. Merlin sighed deeply and took her pale hand in his long slender fingers. "And I know why." She added softly.

"I'm happy here, you know that, right?" Freya nodded. "It's just, I promised I'd return, it's been three years. I need to apologize to him. For the lies, for the running away. I want to meet Gwen and Arthur's new son, I missed so much and I feel so bad-" Freya pressed her lips to his to quiet his incessant ramblings.

She pulled back after a few moments, "You did everything you could to make me happy, now it's my turn." She giggled slightly and ran into the house leaving a baffled and slightly flustered Merlin in her wake.

...

Arthur was sitting in his chambers after a long and boring council meeting. Even after four years as king , Arthur still thought of council meetings as one of the worst ways possible to spend his day.

Especially now, ever since Merlin had left, three years ago, they had become even more dull and unbearable without his manservant making stupid faces and never-ceasing complaints. Arthur had never said it, but Merlin was he only thing that had ever made those long hours even remotely bearable.

Arthur had restored magic to the kingdom once Gaius had revealed Merlin's secret to him after the warlock had ran away.

At first, it had been hard to accept that his most _trusted _friend had _lied _to him all these years but when he looked back on it, it was less anger he felt and more sadness at why Merlin had never told him about his magic and kept it hidden from him. Did he _honestly _think Arthur would burn him at the stake?

Since then, a number of good men and civilians, including a handful of knights, had come forward to say that they too, possessed magic. Even someone raised by someone as narrow-minded about sorcery as Uther Pendragon had to admit, after Gaius had recounted to him the many times his clumsy, idiot manservant had saved his royal behind, not all magic had to be evil.

About a year after Merlin had left he and Guinevere had had a son, Prince Nathaniel Pendragon. Arthur hoped that Merlin had been as happy as he had turned out, despite the huge gangly, neckerchief wearing, manservant shaped hole in the King's life. He knew the reason why the wayward servant had left Camelot and, although at first he was angry, he had softened considerably on the subject.

Gaius had told him, as he sat slack jawed and open mouthed, completely shocked about what he heard, the story of how Freya had came into Merlin's life, Halig the bounty hunter, stealing the food, hiding in the underground tunnels, taking the Lady Morgana's dresses and the bastet. He had told how Freya was snatched cruelly away from Merlin by none other than the then prince himself.

Arthur had been racked with guilt from hearing that horrible statement until the present day. He had promised himself he would make it up to Merlin, somehow. Merlin had described in his letter how she had come back to find him after a pardon from Avalon.

Arthur flopped down on his four-poster bed and sighed heavily. Even though it had been three years, sometimes he still missed his most loyal and trusted friend. Most of all, he wondered if Merlin would keep his promise once he found out that magic had been embraced throughout the kingdom.

At the end of his letter to Gaius, he had written that he would return to Camelot with Freya if he could do so peacefully. He would not put his girl knowingly in danger.

If Arthur was being honest, the week after he had lifted the ban, two and a half years ago, he half expected Merlin to come rushing back, Freya in tow. When he didn't, the Once and Future king of Camelot had sat at his window every night for many hours for at least a month. He would sit until Gwen could coax him into bed with "Maybe tomorrow" or "Maybe he's just not ready yet?".

Ever since reading those few scrawled sentences, Arthur had never once given up hope that one day, his clumsy idiot of a manservant would burst into his chambers, full of apologies. Just as the though crossed his mind, the doors to his chambers were indeed thrown open to reveal a slightly flustered Guinevere Pendragon, panting but smiling from ear to ear.

Gwaine and Gaius came too, hot on her heels. Arthur jumped up and ran straight over to his wife.

"Guinevere, what is it?" Arthur could hardly have hoped for the one word his wife gave him.

"Merlin."

Without wasting another second, the king, his wife, the court physician and one of the king's most trusted knights were sprinting through the halls of Camelot, rushing past servants, maids and nobles alike, yelling apologies and "Give way, King of Camelot coming through!" To any of those to seen it, it was quite an odd sight to behold.

...

As Merlin entered the gates to the citadel, a sense of total dread amid the gladness and happiness of seeing his old home, settled in the pit of his stomach. He began adjusting and playing with his neckerchief, as he did any time he was nervous or excited. In this instance, it was both.

The warlock was just considering turning and running back out those gates like his life depended on it and never looking back when he heard someone yell his name and that notion was shattered to pieces.

"MERLIN!" He turned to see Guinevere rushing down the steps from the castle. She threw herself at the young man and began to sob quietly into his jacket.

"Gwen." He whispered into her hair as he clutched her tightly to his chest, her tears forming a large soggy patch on his light from jacket. Suddenly she stepped back and gave Merlin, if looks could kill, a murderous glare that wold cause instant death to any of those who received it. Then, before he could comprehend what was happening, she slapped him, hard across the face.

He reeled back in shock and held his burning cheek, giving Gwen startled glances. She had never been anywhere near this violent before and most certainly had _never _directed any small amount of anger she may have at Merlin of all people.

"W-what was that for?" He finally managed to choke out. Gwen placed her hands on her hips.

"_That _was for running off and leaving us without so much as a warning, just a letter for us to find _after _you had left."

Merlin was suddenly aware of Gaius' presence when the elderly man slapped him hard across his opposite cheek.

"And _that _was for not saying goodbye and worrying the life out of me you stupid boy."

"Nice to see you too." Both the old man and Merlin's faces split into wide smiles as Gaius enveloped his ward in a warm embrace followed by Gwaine pressing him into a crushing bear hug.

"Welcome back mate." Merlin was aware of one more person standing behind him. This presence was enforced by a large smack to the back of raven haired boy's head.

Merlin turned to come face to face with the blond haired, blue eyed king of Camelot. Arthur Pendragon.

"Um...ouch?" With that Arthur pulled the skinny man into a headlock and began rubbing his knuckles, none to gently, over Merlin's head leaving the half yelling, half laughing young man to try and escape the iron grip. When he finally released him, the first thing Arthur said was,

"Idiot." _In true Arthur style_, Merlin couldn't help but think. He laughed and was about to come back with another insult when Gwaine interrupted,

"So where's this Freya person then?"

"Well, she lagged behind a bit. She should be here soon, it's just the kids were tired-"

"KIDS?" Merlin, had _children_, the thought was just too much for anyone to bear. But then, before he left, it was unthinkable to even imagine he might have had a girlfriend.

At that moment, as if on cue, a small girl ran up to them.

"Daddy!" She shouted as she jumped into her father's arms. She had dark, curled hair and brown eyes, presumably her mother's. Merlin picked her up and spun her around in the air, making her giggle.

"Eva! Where's Mummy?" The little girl stuck her thumb in her mouth and pointed to the gates. Sure enough, there was a dark haired young woman, Freya, holding a sleeping baby in one arm and holding a little boy's hand with the other. As soon as the little boy saw Merlin he ran forward and grasped his hand with similar shouts of "Daddy!" to his sister before him.

Gwaine had just about recovered from his shock and had just managed to talk. "Care to introduce us?"

"Well, this is Freya," He began, gesturing to the woman who was now standing beside him smiling, "This is Evalina and Raylen. They're twins." He nodded towards the sleeping baby in Freya's arms, "That's Alyssia, she's only six months old." Gwen made a cooing noise and went straight for the baby.

"Eva, Ray, Freya, this is Gwen, Gwaine, Gaius and Arthur." Arthur raised an eyebrow as Evalina whispered something in her fathers ear and he laughed and nodded before setting her down on the ground. The young girl toddled over to Arthur and looked right up at him with her almond eyes. Arthur was aware of Merlin trying not to laugh, failing when his two year old came out with what she said next.

"Daddy says you're a prat." Eva looked immensely pleased with herself when everyone around her burst into fits of uncontrollable giggles. Arthur wasn't amused. He crouched down and whispered something in her tiny ear. She looked a little confused but skipped over to her father anyway.

"Daddy, King Arthur says you're a clot-pole. What does that mean?"

...

**A/N: And there it is, over. I got the kids names from a baby name generator where I put in the names 'Merlin' and 'Freya' and chose names for their kids! Loved it or hated it?**

**Please, please review (I will love you forever and it will make me happy, please, make me happy (o_O))**

**Mary :) xo**


	3. SEQUEL NEWS!

_**SEQUEL!**_

Okay, so I have had quite a few requests for more updates, but this is a two-shot. Instead, I have began a _**SEQUEL**_! The first chapter should be up in a few days (tonight if I get the chance!) and, as far as I know, will be called "Without You".

If you want to read it, keep an eye out and I will add another update to this to tell you guys when it's up. Can I just say thanks to all those who followed, added as a favourite and reviewed this two-shot? This is my most successful story to date and _**I LOVE YOU ALL!**_

**Sequel will be up soon!**

Mary ;)


	4. SEQUEL IS UP!

Okay, so the first chapter of the sequel's up!

Like I said before it's called "Without You".

s/9428883/1/Without-You

Enjoy,

Mary :)


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